Report: BP takes some blame for rig disaster

Bloomberg says it has talked to a person who has seen BP’s internal investigation of the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

From the report overnight:

BP’s internal investigation of the Deepwater Horizon rig disaster pins some of the blame on the company for mistakes made when finishing the oil well, including misreading pressure data that indicated a blowout was imminent, according to a person familiar with the report.

BP managers aboard the Transocean Ltd.-owned rig misinterpreted a test of the Macondo well’s stability on April 20, deciding the test confirmed the well was in good shape, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the report’s findings haven’t been publicly released.

That positive interpretation of the test data cleared the way for rig workers to begin replacing drilling fluid in the well, which is heavier than oil and natural gas, with seawater.

The seawater was too light to prevent natural gas that had begun leaking into the well from shooting up the pipe to the rig, where it exploded and killed 11 workers. The damaged well eventually spewed more than 4 million barrels of crude into the sea, enough to fill two supertankers.

From the same report:

The 200-page report was compiled by a team of BP investigators led by Mark Bly, the London-based company’s head of safety and operations. The report concluded BP bears at least partial responsibility for the incident that led to the largest oil spill in U.S. history, the person said. Bly’s team also found that Transocean shares the blame, the person said.

BP intends to announce the findings of their internal probe in the next 10 days, the person said. Scott Dean, a U.S.-based spokesman for BP, declined to comment on the report’s contents. Guy Cantwell, a spokesman for Transocean, said he wasn’t immediately able to comment.

“There are thousands of claims that have been filed with no documentation at all,” Ken Feinberg told state officials at the Southern Governors’ Association convention in Hoover, Ala.

Feinberg took over the claims process from BP on Aug. 23. He said 18,900 individual claims were submitted in the first week and all were reviewed. He says payments were authorized to 1,200 individuals totaling about $6 million in emergency compensation.

Payments have already been processed for some and the rest will be done Monday, he said. Most were for under $25,000. Those who lacked the necessary documentation will be notified and told what type of material they might submit for payment, he said.

Feinberg said profit and loss statements, tax returns and similar documents are not necessarily required. He said minimal proof is all that is needed, and a crew member of a fishing boat might get paid based on a letter from his captain detailing how the worker had been affected.

Businesses submitted 7,400 claims in the first week and their review is next for Feinberg and his staff of 200 reviewers.

“Once a business documents those claims, we will pay those claims within seven days,” he said.